Dark
by Wordweaver-MASKEDXSONGSTRESS
Summary: With a unknown past, Amaranthe Kera is thrust into a world of dark twisting plots to allow Oblivion into her world, as she attempts to find her own dark past. But will she return to that dark past, or will something or someone bring her to the light?
1. Part I: Prologue & Chapter 1

_Greetings! Welcome to my first story I'm posting up here. I'm very excited to be sharing it with you all! Elder Scrolls: IV Oblivion, its places, characters, armors, weapons, etc. belong to Bethesda Game Studios. The character Amaranthe Kera belongs to me, Wordweaver-MASKEDXSONGSTRESS. And yes, its very, very, very easy to make a High Elf not yellow and nearly pure white! I just wish I could really give my characters the hairstyle I describe (It's still too short when its a full length when you have it down, and I hate not being able to have a character with curly hair!!) and we had a choice of height. I'd be the shortest High Elf in existence! :P And yes, I did lots of changes to the story. Its how a author with my mind lives!_

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_Part I:  
Prologue: Unfading Dark_

_Her eyes flicked about in the setting sun, fear gripping at what she had just done as she sat on the edge of the well, cleaning her blade and watching the guards. They knew plenty well who she was, and she knew them as well, but not for any good deed. But alas, they could never fully accuse her of the crimes she had committed, and she could walk the streets freely. And yet, her eyes showed more then enough that she had just killed again, and all the guards would haft to do would be lift the grate covering the well she sat on and discover the blood pools at the bottom._

_As a group of the ones that always asked her who she had killed last began to form up and come over in her direction, she leapt guiltily off the well, sheathing the sword on her back against her quiver of arrows and fleeing away, and out the town gates. It would not be safe to reveal the new person giving her orders to kill, and she fled in the direction that would probably end up causing her the most hell when the mess was discovered: Imperial City. She knew she was not thinking properly because of what she had just done, but her instincts carried her there. Time blurred._

_Now it was well into the night, and the clouds that had gathered in the heavens unleashed their rains down upon the city. Soaking wet, and her light-weight leather armor spattered with blood, she moved with an unnatural grace through the guards attacking her as she tried to resist arrest. And the battle in the nighttime plaza seemed to be in the solo female's favor, over the many Imperial guards, as she threw herself into a dodge roll and a arrow flew to the place she had once stood. Anther guard fell with three or four flashes of her blade, but with every ounce of blood she drew, she felt more sickened by what she had been doing for the past year. She had destroyed her own life in such a small amount of time, and taken so many lives. The last of this group fell frozen forever in time by the ice that came from the very tips of her fingers._

_As anther group converged on her, she dropped her blade and surrendered. "No more. I can not do this anymore!" she screamed into the night. _

_Time was once more a blur as she was imprisoned. Days and nights turned into weeks, and then slowly months. The grace of her skills of everything she had done was leaving her, and she was more then pleased. She wanted to be let go when she could no longer wield a weapon properly, and no longer remember the destructive magics that had swallowed her whole. The dark elf in the cell across from her always spat insults across the hall at her, or told her the guards would kill her on the morrow everyday, but soon she learned the power to ignore and not hear him, and that was the only power she truly cared for anymore._

_She opened her eyes, the dark blue shining in the moonlight filtering in through the barred windows of her cell. She had been captured during the early spring, and by the scent of the very air, she could tell it was now late fall. She would be free soon, and free to wander the world at her own will soon enough, even though it would not be in the realm of the living. But then she heard the dark elf yelling to her now. "Look, the guards are coming for you!" and he laughed madly. __She closed her eyes again just as the clatter of boots echoed down the stairs and into the hall where the cells were._

___

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_

_Part I:_

_Chapter I: Awaken_

She awoke with a yelp, her dark colored eyes flicking about the nighttime environment beside the lake. Her heart beat fast with fear, her clouded memories in the back of her mind somehow seeming stronger after the dream. _'Or was it… a memory?' _She thought to herself. Her head drooped a little, the long black ringlets falling past her pretty, nearly pure white face. Her ears were sharp and pointed, but not quite as large as a bosmer's, nor as small as a dunmer's. A a long, silvery scar on her left cheekbone stood out somewhat on her face.

Pushing herself into a sitting position, she leaned against the rock she had been lying against when she had fallen down, exhausted after the fact she had not slept well the night before, and had swam across the lake to the opposite shore. She placed her hand on her pocket, suddenly remembering the object the Emperor had handed her just only several seconds before his death and not far from freedom. Or at least, freedom to her, a prisoner of Imperial city. She sighed with relief as her fingers brushed it, but the panic of her dream swallowed her. _'Breathe, Amaranthe. You're free now. If it was a memory, whatever you had done happened months ago, and is probably old news.' _The young woman told herself, attempting to calm her unsteady thoughts.

Her memory was no more then a blur since she had awoke only three days ago in full recognition of where she was, and what was going on. Only three days ago had Amaranthe Kera really began to remember things that were happening in the present. Her past was hardly recoverable through her memories, she just simply did not remember. But she was positive of one thing, her skill with a sword and a bow and arrow was undeniable, alongside her destructive magic. She hardly had any idea what she was doing when she picked up a short sword down underneath the Imperial City with the Emperor Uriel Septim and his guards known as the Blades to try to help fight the assassins, but her movement with the blade had been fluid, graceful, and absolutely deadly like she had been trained for many, many years. When Amaranthe had discovered a bow and arrows, she used the weapon far beyond any proficiency she believed she would ever have with such a weapon. Her magic she had discovered on pure accident, when one of the assassins that had been trying to kill the Emperor came up behind her, and she sent him flying down the hall as a ball of fire.

But the same feeling that she had in the dream, or the memory, or whatever it was had struck her down there. That feeling of strange sickness that took her when she took the life of one of the attackers. Yet Amaranthe had no choice. It was either die, or feel a little ill and survive. And she could already tell, even though that dream did not really seem to show it, she was a survivor, and one very well capable of defending herself.

As her mind relaxed fully, she began to concentrate on the task at hand: reaching the Weynon Priory just outside Chorrol and delivering the Amulet of Kings to a man named Jauffre and finding the next heir to the throne. She knew that she should not rest, or sleep until she reached there, every second with the amulet out in the wilderness being in danger, but her tired eyes had won the last battle. They would not win the next.

Quickly, she stood up and walked over to the lake, her dark blue eyes flicking about again. Pulling off her tattered clothes to the bare minimum and throwing them somewhere they would be dry, Amaranthe jumped into the freezing water. The shock of the cold fully awoke her, and would probably keep her well awake for the next several hours. Not including, it eliminated all of the dirt and muck on her so she did not look like she really had broken free of prison through the sewers as she travelled down the road past other people. She pulled herself out quickly, changing back into her warm clothes and making sure the amulet had not fallen out of the pocket of her pants. She buckled the belt with her sheathed short sword around her waist once again, pulling the quiver of arrows onto her back and the bow. With a narrow scrap of leather, she bound her long black ringlets, which had been somewhat straightened by the water, loosely back, and sharply inhaled the night air.

Eyes flickering through the darkness once more, Amaranthe headed through the night to Chorrol.

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	2. Part I: Chapter 2

_Hey everyone! Welcome to P1, C2 of Dark! I'm trying my best to keep this very well updated, and keep anyone who does read it happy. Thank you for any reviews you gave me for Prologue and C1! _

_Ok, so lets do this the easy way. NOTHING HERE BUT MY CHARACTER, _Amaranthe Kera_, BELONGS TO ME. EVERYTHING BUT MY CHARACTER BELONGS TO BETHESDA STUDIOS! Oh, yeah, and the random, nameless person I put in at the end._

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_Part I:_

_Chapter 2: Chorrol_

Dawn broke over the horizon, casting the land in a golden green through the trees on the road to Chorrol. But Amaranthe did not stop to admire the beauty. There was no time, she had wasted some of that time a moon ago, when she had fallen asleep. Not now though. She had to get to Weynon Priory; she knew the importance of it. As her dark hair flew behind, she pushed her self up the suddenly sloping hill. Amaranthe began to feel relief as she saw the Priory come into the sight of her dark blue eyes.

Her running pace then slowed to a walk, Amaranthe breathing in the cool morning air deep trying to slow her fast beating heart from such a run. She was absolutely positive she looked like she was a wild woman, but appearances were the last thing that mattered to her right at that very moment.

She looked to the chapel on the right side of the courtyard like front of the Priory. Even though it was early, Amaranthe wanted to guess that maybe whom she was searching for was within the place of prayer. She walked towards the chapel, just as something overcame her sight and it became hard to breathe.

* * *

_Her eyes flicked about the blackness, and she looked up to a figure in dark leather garb and a hood. She could not see the person's face, nor identify if they were male or female. All she could tell was the fact that she was small, probably only a child standing at the height she was to the other person._

_ "Go on, child. Do it, complete your first job." A voice hissed from beneath the hood. She did not understand. Do what? She was standing practically in nothingness, in a blank space. She looked at her hands, and then gasped. They were the same pale, but smaller, like she were a child, and she held a unfamiliar, dark, intricate dagger in her right hand. And it blood was dripping from it._

_A gasp escaped from her that she could not hear and was seemingly non-existent here, and the room began to form, and simple wooden room with a bed, and a table with a number of lit candles on it. And on the floor before her was a man that was cut and bleeding terribly, with a look on his face of shock that these two people had miraculously had showed up in his home and assaulted him._

_ Or was it shock that the young child was about to take his life? Or had been the only one to do such damage to him? She could not tell. "Finish him. Finish him now, Kera." The voice said coldly, and beyond her control, she dropped down and…_

_

* * *

_

She gasped for air as she felt the ground beneath her, that strange feeling of revulsion that appeared whenever she killed someone being extremely strong. "Are you alright, Altmer?" A voice asked, and Amaranthe looked up.

An old man dressed in black priest's robes was standing above her. Amaranthe smiled, gathering her breath and trying to act normal. "I'm sorry. I believe I am just really tired. But I must find a man named Jauffre, it is very important. Is he here?" She asked, trying to keep the fact she was probably about to cover the ground with puddles of sick out of her voice.

Amaranthe pushed herself to her feet, trying to stay strong, noticing the fact as she always did that she was an abnormally short high elf, standing only at the height of the old man. She always wondered how some people could guess that she was an Altmer over a Bosmer or a Dunmer, but had never asked. "Yes, he's here. He's inside the house though." The priest said, pointing over to the other building diagonally right from the chapel door.

She nodded. "Thank you." And went straight for the Weynon Priory house. The feeling of sickness had not left her, but it was getting better as she reached the door. _'Anther memory?'_ Amaranthe asked herself, as she absent-mindedly passed the lower floor of the house and went up the stairs, turning right at the point where the stairs without even realizing what she was doing.

She guessed she went in the correct direction as she reached the top of the stairs and turned into the room. It was a large, spacious spot, the study of the house Amaranthe guessed, and sitting behind the desk in front of the window was anther elderly man dressed in green-yellow robes. He did not notice her, so Amaranthe walked over to the desk. "Excuse me."

This got the elderly man's attention. "Yes, what do you want?"

"I'm searching for a man named Jauffre. Do you know where he is?" Amaranthe asked.

"And why do you want to know that?"

Amaranthe swallowed hard, and nervously, something in the pit of her stomach making her think this might all go bad and turn on her. "The Emperor... The Emperor and his sons are dead. Assassins killed them." The feeling got worse as she said it. The old man seemed to think about it for a moment, and then looked at her like she was a liar.

"What a creative story. And I am not to suspect that you are not up to something, not trying to make me turn my back so you can stick a blade through my throat?" The old man laughed. Amaranthe glared. She was _not _a liar, and as far as she knew, the things she kept seeing were just dreams and she was no killer except of people who tried to kill her and others that were important.

"I have the Amulet of Kings." She said bluntly and angrily, and removed the amulet from her pocket, the great ruby at it's center flashing like fire from the light shining in the windows as she set it down gently on the desk. The old man picked it up, and his mouth fell open wide at the sight of it.

"Where did you get this?" He asked, seeming angry too.

"The Emperor gave it to me as he was dying. He told me to find you so his son could be found and to _'close shut the jaws of Oblivion'_." Amaranthe snapped.

The old man stopped, and a strange look Amaranthe could not decipher. "And he sent you to find me?"

"One of the Blades is more likely to say sent me. From the way you are talking though, I take it you are Jauffre." She said.

"Yes. I am Jauffre, and whoever sent you had it right to send you to me. Your story, at least coming from you, seems true. I can not tell why I believe you, but I do not believe you are a liar now for some reason." Jauffre replied. His expression changed, and he began again. "Why don't you sit down and explain what happened fully."

* * *

The sun was just finishing it's rise as the heavy storm clouds settled in over the city, blotting it from view. The air around the town smelt heavily of rain and a large storm. The day was going to be a dark day, but only the color of it. Things had to be done that day, and a little bit of rain would stop no one.

A young woman with short, mousy brown hair left the chapel, her large plain brown eyes looking about the stormy sky. She had nothing to do, and was left alone to wander the streets after her parent's deaths. She was gray with illness once again, but she kept her strength no matter what. Not including, today was the day. She and several others without homes had spent their time saving up what little they could to buy scrappy weapons and armor and try to go out into the world and make a name for themselves. The woman knew it was a childish dream, such as many childish dreams she had when she stared into the faces men who she wished she and them would fall in love with each other, and marry. But not one would ever marry her, a homeless young lady without a penny to her name and nothing extraordinary about her.

Yet she wanted to go. It was worth a shot, and either way, she would probably be dead by the end of this bout of sickness or trying to be an adventurer, so in her mind, she wanted to go out in a fight. Not ill and every part of her screaming out her illness.

She decided that she would go out and look out to the world for a while, until the others came searching for her when it was time to go. Quite simply, she walked out of the gates and into the world outside. She would not stray far, only going to the edge of the road that sloped down the hill back and forth in front of the town.

The glow of the world enchanted her from that height. It was beautiful, and she knew it was fraught with many dangers. But she was going out into it, and this moment would probably be one of her last seeing it as a simple girl with no home or life. She felt tired suddenly, and shut her eyes...

A loud crackling, and it suddenly feeling warm and smelling like fire awoke the young woman. She stood to her feet, as the world above looked like night, but the sky seemed cracked and the stars were red. She turned towards the town, and gasped as she could no longer see the front gates. Instead, a great multitude of creatures were coming forth from a large, fire-colored portal that she had never seen before. She could already hear the screaming and destruction coming from the town. Every instinct in her told her to turn and flee down the path, but she also suddenly felt obligated to try and run into the town and help who she could with her worthless, ill body.

And that was exactly what she did. Grabbing the sword of a fallen guard nearby that had apparently been trying to flee, the young woman ran at the creatures coming from the portal, swinging the weapon frantically. She was absolutely clueless about what she was doing, and the creatures could tell. She managed to fell one of them, before it was too late for her to turn back and save herself from an imminent doom. A blast of fire, and the young woman was thrown back far, the weapon falling where she had been, her burnt body laying broken near the road sloping down. The sounds of screaming and destruction began in the town. And so the Siege of Kvatch began.


	3. Part I: Chapter 3I

_Author's note: Oh, wow! I made it to Chapter 3! YAY! So if your survived my last chapter and are back for more, well, I am still going. Once again, ONLY MY CHARACTER(s), Amaranthe Kera, BELONG TO ME! EVERYTHING ELSE BELONGS TO BETHESDA STUDIOS!_

_

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_

_Part I:_

_Chapter 3: Through Oblivion (I)_

Amaranthe grasped the steel claymore strongly, slicing it through the air with ease and grace. "Yes, it is easy enough to use." She said to Jauffre.

"Good. You need to get to Kvatch, quickly. You must find Martin before the enemy does. I have arranged with the Mages Guild here to get you to Kvatch, but you will haft to return by foot." Jauffre said, walking out of the door of the priory house alongside the abnormally short high elf.

"It should be easy enough. I will not fail." She said.

"Then good luck, Amaranthe. Return here swiftly once you find him." Jauffre said in farewell, and Amaranthe ran to the road and up to the town.

She was no longer garbed in the dirty clothes of a prisoner, which was much to a relief to her. Instead, she wore plain, deep brown leather armor. The steel claymore and a new bow and set of arrows had replaced her short sword and crumbling bow arrows she had found. Amaranthe looked ready for a fight, and in her blood, she knew she was.

She quickly located the Mages Guild in Chorrol, entering the building swiftly. Amaranthe approached the normal appearing high elf man sitting near the entrance, and he looked up as if expecting her. "Amaranthe Kera?" He asked. She nodded as she caught her breath again.

"Come with me." The high elf said, and she followed behind him into a side room.

"We have been prepared for some time to send somebody to Kvatch, or at least ever since Jauffre showed up here. It was like he was expecting you to come along one day." The man said. Amaranthe wanted to say, _or maybe it was to retrieve the illegitimate son of the Emperor when the time came, _but she kept her mouth shut. It would not be wise to say things right now.

Amaranthe stepped into the center of the room without a word. The high elf understood she would not say anything, and began the incantation to send her to Kvatch. She closed her eyes, thinking that this would be a simple find and convince thing.

Everything went bright, and then extremely dark.

* * *

The sounds of yelling and footsteps coming at her made her eyes fly open. Amaranthe looked directly up the sloping road and zigzagging road, spotting a camp full of people from the town, and a man running at her.

"Run, run! We must flee! Kvatch has fallen!" The man said, running past her.

"Wait! What is going on?" She asked, running after the man. He stopped, and looked at her with shock on his face.

"By the Nine Divines, you do not know?" He cried. Amaranthe shook her head, not understanding a thing.

"Kvatch has fallen. It is destroyed. The daedra came from the gate and destroyed it all! That thing... it climbed over the walls... fire everywhere! Captain Savlian Matius might hold ground for now, but it will not be for long." Amaranthe's stomach dropped as he said it.

"Is the priest Martin with the others?" Amaranthe asked. The man shook his head, and something loud cracked causing him to jump and run once again. Immediately, she rushed past the camp of groaning people, and up the cliff-like path to Kvatch.

The cloudy sky began to change as Amaranthe ran. The clouds were soon gone, but the skies pitch black, with stars and a strange sun lighting it with the color of fire. Cracks in the sky, glowing in the same color as the sun and stars webbed about. Something was unnaturally wrong here, and Amaranthe could feel it.

"Damn it! That stupid Bosmer! I can not believe he just did that!" She heard someone yell as she reached the top. Amaranthe's eyes caught on many of the Kvatch guard standing on the same side as she of wooden spiked barricades. Her blue eyes widened at the large glowing, fire-colored portal directly in front of the gates of Kvatch. She continued forward, slowing to a walk. She went past the first guards, ignoring any stares, and went towards the end of the barricades, preparing to go in.

"Stop right there, civilian. No one is going past here and into that place, especially with all of the daedra swarming around in there." She heard somebody say behind her.

She turned and could tell by the high authority of the man over the rest of the guard that this was the captain of the Kvatch guard. "Savlian Matius, sir," Amaranthe said, saluting the man, "I need to get in there and find Martin. He is needed urgently elsewhere."

"The priest? Last I saw him, he was taking a large group of survivors into the chapel. I hope they are all still there alive and safe." The man seemed exhausted from working and trying to exterminate the daedra creatures that had come from the gate.

"If I must, I will help you. I know how to use a blade and some magic. I must get in there and retrieve him. I can probably find a way to close that gate, too." Amaranthe replied calmly.

"Help? You must be out of your mind. I sent in a group of soldiers and they have not come back, and some idiot wood elf ranger ran in there several minutes ago and I highly doubt I am ever going to see him again." Savlian Matius looked at her hard, but Amaranthe's dark blue eyes showed she was going to be absolutely stubborn about it.

The man sighed. "Alright. If you are going in there though, try to find my men and that Bosmer."

Amaranthe nodded. She drew the claymore from her back, charging past the barricades and towards the gate. She ran through the gate, the air whipped through her ears as she ran through.

It was miserably hot on the other side of the gate. Amaranthe looked about the wasteland. The sky was the same as it had been on the other side standing near the gate, but seeming fiercer and far more real, and had no sun. The ground was black and rocky, with little growing out of it but strange plants. Pools of liquid fire were everywhere, hissing and spitting flame and as they devoured the land. In the distance, Amaranthe could see a dark tower rising out of the ground. Something about it was drawing her towards it.

'_I do not imagine anyone but certain people could survive here.' _Amaranthe thought, continuing forward. She looked around, no signs of life stirring anywhere. And then from the corner of her eye she caught sight of a spark turning into a small orb of fire and flying straight for her head.

Amaranthe threw herself forward, like she had in her first dream, rolling forward, the flare missing her easily. She spotted the creature firing it at her, and apparently, it had two other friends with it.

They were ugly creatures, short with naked heads and orange skin. Spiky teeth came from their mouths and their little hands were like claws. _'Scamps.'_ Amaranthe thought. The creatures were then stupid enough to try to charge her.

She brandished the claymore at the creatures as they reached her, their greedy, clawed little hands trying to tear at her. The most they did was scrape the leather armor, leaving little scratches in it, before she swung the blade down into the three of them. One fell with a squeal, and anther fell dully beside it. The last had been smarter then it looked though, jumping back just as it saw her move. Amaranthe grinned at the thing, the sickness that normally filled her stomach when she killed not coming as she fell these creatures.

She ran at the creature, instead of swinging the sword, grabbing it by the head and whispering a word under her breath. The scamp screamed and became solidly frozen over. _'This, is easy.'_ She thought, and carried on around the lava and onwards to the tower.

A groan rose up then. Amaranthe turned, looking back to where she had taken her blade and magic to the scamps. And then she caught sight of a man dressed in the garb of the Kvatch guard. She remembered Savlian Matius asking her to keep and eye out for his men and the wood elf that had gone through the gate. She ran to him.

"Are you alright?" Amaranthe asked the man, crouching down to him.

"Oh, thank the Divines. I though I'd never see anther friendly face. I think my leg is broken." He groaned to her. Amaranthe nodded, looking back to where she had first come from. A gate similar to the one sitting just outside the Kvatch gates was there, and Amaranthe nodded to herself.

"Alright. I will get you out of here. Where is the rest of your group?" She asked, and pulled the soldier up, supporting him as much as she could.

"Dead. All dead... I was next until you showed up and killed the rest of those little bastards." The soldier groaned, obviously in pain. Amaranthe almost wanted to laugh at the fact that a group of men could not kill three scamps, but a sole woman could without getting a scratch. She kept it to herself though.

She knew it would be rough trying to get him back to the gate, and his leg would be put through a large amount of pain as she tried to get him to the gate. "I am sorry. This is going to hurt badly." Amaranthe said, and she helped the soldier limp to the gate. She could see in the man's eyes that he was in pain throughout the entire way back as his broken leg would touch the ground every few moments, but he did not cry out once.

They reached the gate at an extremely slow rate. "Alright. Do you think you can get through there alone?" Amaranthe asked the soldier as they finally got close to it for her to feel the lick of the portal and the air on the other side, which was not very different from over here, but it was cooler. The soldier nodded, and Amaranthe let him go. The man let out a cry as he began to fall through the portal, but he stopped as he went through.

She made sure he was all the way through, and then Amaranthe carried on in the direction she had been formerly going.

* * *

Her way to the tower had been simple, not coming across any more then the unsightly scamps which were easy enough to slay. The last one that had been in front of the tower went down with a deep stab to the heart, and Amaranthe felt it odd that the sickness of slaying these creatures was not coming over her, but she appreciated it for the time being. If she had, she would have probably been sick everywhere.

The tower loomed over her, high into the eternal sky that was like fire. _'Why do I get the feeling I am going to haft to go to the very top of that thing?' _Amaranthe asked herself. She sighed, finding the handle to the large black door guarding the entrance to the tower, and pulling them open.

The door swung shut behind her as Amaranthe entered the tower. It was not loud, but Amaranthe's eyes flicked about nervously, knowing that something had probably heard it. Her eyes adjusted to the lighting of the tower, and focused on the nearly bare main room. It was dark, and probably would have been pitch black if not for the pool at the center, where a large beam of light rose. As Amaranthe stared at it, the draw she had felt to the tower now focused on the beam and up to the higher levels of the tower. She moved forward into the main room, her hands grasping the claymore more tightly.

Nothing.

Not a thing was even there on the bottom floor, except a few more dead scamps lying about and one humanoid-like thing that Amaranthe had never quite seen, but somehow, she felt she knew it. _'Dremora. Daedra soldiers of Mehrunes Dagon.' _She had no idea how she knew it, but she had a feeling she had heard it somewhere before. The scamps had been killed by very good arrow shots, one with an arrow to the head while the other to with one to the chest. The daedra had been killed with a blade, and rather sloppily as if the person had very little experience with a sword. She looked about, looking for anything else, her eyes catching on a black door sunken into the dark walls of the tower. Once again, she felt drawn to the top of the tower and knew through that door, there was a way.

She pulled it open, going into a narrow corridor passage the sloped upwards immediately. Amaranthe followed it, not finding anything once again but dead scamps in a room that the corridor opened up into. Her eyes searched, something feeling wrong with the fact that she had to fight her way here, and now that she was here, everything she had come across but herself and the beam going up to the top of the tower was dead, mainly to the same arrows that had killed the creatures bellow.

Exiting the room, Amaranthe proceeded up the spiral ramps. Once again, anything that had been on them was dead, shot down by arrows or killed by extremely sloppy blade work. She continued into the next set of corridors at the top of the ramp, and into the room at the top of the sloping way. Amaranthe was starting to feel familiar with the destruction of creatures and daedra in the tower as she entered.

Amaranthe's eyes seemed to avoid the mess, which was extremely fresh as some of the creatures were still oozing blood, and touched the two doors in the room. One, on the wall to the left of her, was part way cracked, as if it had been recently opened, the air outside of it whistling through the crack loudly. The other, which was directly in front of her, was fully sealed. The tug that she had been feeling from the tower and then the beam then came from there though. She went to that door, and tried to pull it open.

The door refused to budge, and she could tell it was not stuck, but locked. Amaranthe sighed, and looked at the other door, part way cracked open. _'At least I can possibly know who is killing everything. There is no other way but back from here, unless someone somehow got the door open or left before I got here, but those have not been dead long.' _

She went to the cracked door, pushing the heavy sliding things open. It went outside, a narrow bridge that only one person alone or a single file line could fit across, going to a smaller tower across the way. At the height Amaranthe was at, a fall would be fatal. Amaranthe stepped out onto the bridge, the narrow pathway and being as high up as she was making her partly frightened, but she kept her head on firmly.

Amaranthe reached the other side happily, pulling open the door and entering. The smaller tower was much lighter on the inside, but still very dark. Blood was dried onto the walls, and dead bodies hung from the roof, some a light with fire. A spiraling ramp, nearly as small and narrow as the bridge that had just gotten her here, spiraled down to she guessed a quarter of a way up the tower.

She could hear sounds of movement below her, and it was getting closer. Something in her twitched as she grasped the blade more tightly between her hands, the feeling of sickness that normally came when she thought about killing a human or humanoid, but had not shown up here. Amaranthe ran up the ramp, going for the top floor. The shouts and cries of a man above her were now heavily audible as she rushed up the stairs loudly, and when she reached the top, something smashed into the wall beside her. A mace.

Amaranthe looked to the source directly in front of her, one of the Dremora standing in front of her seething. "You should not be here mortal!" He yelled, and pulled his mace back, trying to strike her again.

Amaranthe ducked as he swung the thing, trying to freeze it with her spell but missing by quite a bit. She threw herself into a forward roll, taking careful care not to stab herself with her own sword, returning to her feet. She turned on the daedra, blocking the next swing from his mace, taking a chance to make an upwards cut. It scraped off of the daedra's armor until it found a crack in the armor, stopping there. Amaranthe reacted fast, stabbing inwards.

The claymore had located itself in the stomach, a wound that would have been fatal to a normal human being. But instead, the daedra kept going, shoving her back and sending her into the ground beside a large cage with a man inside, that she had not noticed when she first got to the top of the small tower. Amaranthe grasped for the claymore, knowing the blade had flown back with her. It was several inches away from her, and the Dremora was advancing fast on her with the mace even though it was bleeding horribly.

Desperation took over, and she began to push herself over to her blade, grabbing for it, feeling the thing coming closer by the moment. She threw herself to the left and the mace smashed just where she had been. Amaranthe's fingers brushed the hilt of the blade, and it moved more into her hand.

She grasped it tightly, and swung it around at the daedra.

Amaranthe found she had not need to as the creature crashed forward to the ground, an arrow matching the ones that had killed the creatures below sticking out at the exact center of it's head…


End file.
